Hannah smiled as she moved about the room, straightening things. “You would be Amsterdam’s greatest secret weapon for sure, Mama. Who would expect a white-haired knitter of espionage? I don’t doubt you’d take out the whole German Army single-handedly if you had the chance.”
Clara agreed by waving her cane in the air. She made her way to the other curtain and steadily pulled it closed.
Hannah removed the kettle from the boil and steeped tea, then unwrapped a thin sliver of meat from brown paper and added dark bread and fruit, for their dinner. After they finished eating by the fire, Hannah went into the hallway to retrieve the Underground newspaper Het Parool from her satchel, which one of the teachers had given her at work so Clara could read it. As she fished in her coat pocket for a pen, in case her mother wanted to circle articles for Hannah to read later, she found the pedal she’d slipped in there. Picking it up had been instinctive, like taking something back from the Germans, something that belonged to them. But now as she looked at it, a thought struck her.
“I’m just going out to Poppa’s shed,” she shouted over her shoulder after she’d delivered the newspaper to her mother’s eager hand. Clara now hunched even closer to the fire, nodded as she started to scan the headlines.
Pulling on a coat, Hannah went through her back door and down a narrow stone path to the bottom of their tiny garden. It was unusual for Dutch homes to have back gardens, but their house edged onto a small area of woodland and her father had negotiated a deal for a tiny lot when he’d bought it. Opening the two large wooden doors to her father’s workshop, she was transported back in time. The smell of oil and dust greeted her as it had ever since she was a little girl. Reaching up, she pulled on a light just inside the door. A single light bulb swung back and forth, clanging against its own metal chain as it illuminated the whole room. A wayward moth flew inside, drawn toward the light, and its wings brushed against the bulb, creating a crisp, ruffling sound. She looked around, breathing in deeply, allowing the memories that cradled her to fill her with the awe she always felt every time she walked inside. Her father’s presence, large and looming, still felt as if it occupied all this space. She looked down at her hands then opened her fingers one at a time to offer up the pedal to the room itself.
She was surprised to feel tears run down her cheeks. The time they were in right now, this war, could do that to her with memories of her late husband and her father. It was like her feelings were always just beneath the surface.
She closed her eyes and imagined her father’s large bear-like hand reaching forward and taking the pedal from her, his thick dark eyebrows knotting as he peered over his reading glasses to see what she’d given him. His deep rolling voice would say, “What do you have here for me, Hannah Bear?” Carefully he would have rolled it around in his considerable hand, inspecting it as if she’d brought him a treasure from a far-off place. Then, no matter how insignificant the gift, he would have placed both his hands around hers, saying, “Thank you, darling.”
Hannah swept away the tears and made her way farther into the shed, to the workbench that had been left just the same as when he had died. She placed the pedal on the desk next to the last project he’d ever worked on, a tricycle for one of the children down the street.
As she walked around surveying all the workshop had to offer, she shivered and pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders. Her father had been a bicycle enthusiast. There were chains and deflated, flabby inner tubes hanging on the walls, spoked wheels and discarded leather seats stacked in one corner. Yellowing posters of bicycle events and advertisements covered every available wall. Rickety, dark-green shelves overflowed with cans of paint, lubricating oils, and saddle glue.
As she continued to circle the room, she became transfixed by a bright-colored poster of a heavily-mustached man in knickerbockers and a bowler hat balanced precariously astride an elegant penny-farthing bicycle. As she read the words—Just what he needs!—under the advertisement, she was struck with an idea, the thrill of it taking hold of her all at once.
She moved over to her father’s dusty, but ordered, bookshelves and looked for the book she wanted. Smiling to herself, she pulled it down from the shelf, rubbing the dusty cover with satisfaction. Turning on her heels, she left the shed and turned out the light. Maybe there was something she could do with all this sadness.
Chapter 4
Held left his house the next day, on Saturday morning, locked the door, and made his way to the centre of Amsterdam. Every weekend, he met his niece, Ingrid, for lunch. The only daughter of his late brother, Marcus, he felt he owed it to him to be involved in Ingrid’s life. She had been through so many hardships. Losing both parents to influenza at a young age had been a devastating blow for her. She’d been sent by her mother’s well-meaning relatives to well-chosen schools, only to be told she wasn’t quite the right fit when she habitually didn’t complete her studies, having no care for her education in the least. She had struggled to make friends and to find her place in the world all through her turbulent childhood. Now in her twenties, all of that rejection had built up inside her and left a harsh, toughened exterior. But Josef still had a hope that one day she would soften into a sweeter person, more like his dear, mild-mannered brother.
His walk through Jodenbuurt revealed that the line for the bakery was long this morning. Downcast women huddled, wearing tightly wrapped headscarves and shawls, and clinging to empty shopping baskets as they talked in hushed, solemn tones. He turned the corner and walked past a blackened building that used to house the kosher butcher. The shop was boarded up after it had been abandoned and then set on fire. Newly splashed across the wooden front in black paint was the word “Juden.” Held sighed. He missed the jolly butcher, Mr. Wolff. He’d been a large, happy man with a buxom wife and two lovely daughters. He would whistle while he separated generous beef shanks from their bones before carving them expertly with long, sharp blades, and entertain his customers with one more re-telling of his latest joke while he filled his immense scales with chunks of red flesh.
Held wondered where Wolff and his family were now. He tried not to think the worst or to believe the rumors. He preferred to believe the pleasant man was telling his jokes to a new crowd, in a safe place called Manhattan or maybe Cincinnati.
Turning into Amstelstraat toward Café Schiller, he noticed that the grubby piles of ice along the roadways were finally starting to melt. The weather must have climbed a few degrees higher. Though as he blew out thick, icy breath, the chill that set hard in his cheeks seemed to disagree.
When he arrived at the blue-and-white awning of the café, he looked through the window. Ingrid was already inside, with a cigarette held high in one hand, one leg crossed seductively over the other, which allowed her skirt to ride up more than was necessary. She sat posed at a table, thick blonde hair in a fashionable wave. Her overly made-up face made her stand out among the rest of the bleak, miserable clientele.
When he entered, she jumped up to meet him and kissed him on his cheek. “Uncle Josef!” She then flashed her eyes at two young German soldiers who had arrived behind him.
Held automatically pulled a clean handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket to wipe away the red lipstick mark he knew would be there.